Joe Biden has backed Israel’s account of the deadly blast at a Gaza hospital, saying that the “other team” were behind the explosion as he visited Tel Aviv.
The US president said he was “deeply saddened and outraged” by the explosion and that “based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, but there’s a lot of people out there not sure so... we’ve got to overcome a lot of things.” The vague language was toughed up later in the day after questions from the media, with Mr Biden saying that his comments backing the Israeli military’s assertion that militants in Gaza were responsible for the attack were based on “data from my Defence Department”. During a final speech before heading back to Washington, the president said that “it appears the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza”.
The dispute over the source of the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital explosion on Tuesday evening hung heavily over Mr Biden’s visit. Before he arrived, Israel’s military released a flurry of video, audio, and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a missile misfire by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. Officials in Gaza have blamed Israel for the blast, claiming that 471 people were killed and 341 wounded. A spokesperson for the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry called it an “Israeli massacre”.
Nations such as Jordan, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey lined up to blame Israel for the blast causing the cancellation of what would have been a second leg of Mr Biden’s trip, to Jordan, to discuss the situation in Gaza with King Abdullah, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. The hospital explosion also became a lightning rod for anger across the Middle East, with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group calling for a “day of rage” on Wednesday, with protests in the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Iran and elsewhere.
Wrecked vehicles smoulder after al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was hit in Gaza City— (Anadolu/Getty)
That left Mr Biden’s trip focused on Israel. Having been hugged on the tarmac by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after landing in Tel Aviv, he ended his trip by saying that the US will “stand forever with Israel and will not let you ever be alone.” Speaking about the Hamas attack across the border 11 days ago that left around 1,400 people dead and almost 200 hostages believed to be taken by the militants back into Gaza, Mr Biden said it had “left a deep, deep wound”.
Referencing the Holocaust in the Second World War, he said the world “did nothing” but that “we will not stand by and do nothing again”. He went on to also reference the terror attacks of 9/11 saying for “a nation the size of Israel” the Hamas attack was “like 15 9/11s”. He said he would ask Congress for an “unprecedented” aid package for Israel this week to help in its defence.
In the wake of the Hamas attack, Israel has launched a near-continuous aerial bombardment of Gaza and a “complete siege” of the enclave, leaving aid unable to get in. The military also called on Palestinians in the enclave of more than two million people to move to southern Gaza ahead of what is expected to be a ground operation, leaving hospitals and shelters overcrowded. That is an evacuation order which rights groups and the UN argue could amount to the war crime of forcible transfer.
Mr Biden said that “you can’t look at what has happened [in Israel] and not scream out for justice”, but added that Palestinians in Gaza were also “suffering” and that “while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it.”
He added: “After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
Protesters chant slogans in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, near the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon— (AP)
Earlier this week, the US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, had been working to try and ensure that humanitarian aid would be able to enter Gaza from the border with Egypt, which has been stuck for days. Mr Biden said he had secured a deal for Israel to allow such aid as long as it was inspected before crossing into Gaza, while also announcing $100m (£82m) in humanitarian assistance to help Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. After Mr Biden’s remarks, Mr Netanyahu’s office said that in light of “President Biden’s demand” Israel “will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population in the southern Gaza Strip”.
The statement did not mention fuel, which is badly needed for power as supplies are dwindling, while no timings were given for when aid might begin to move into the Strip.
The state of the crisis in Gaza is illustrated by the fact that patients are being operated on without anaesthetic. Doctors are having to make “impossible choices”, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, as it announced its own warehouse of medicine in the Strip is now completely empty. Local and general anaesthetics across the strip are “on the brink of running out completely”, while blood banks only have two weeks of supply left, according to WHO officials.
President Biden gives a speech in Tel Aviv— (AP)
The warnings of failing supplies come amid concerns for those wounded in the hospital blast on Tuesday. The Independent was sent videos showing paramedics tending to the wounded in pools of blood on the floor. Mohamed Ghanem, an emergency doctor at Gaza’s largest hospital al-Shifaa, said: “There was no operation room any more because of the mass casualties. The doctors tried to do surgeries in the corridors of the hospital without any anaesthesia.”
Part of the reason for Mr Biden’s trip was to try and ensure Israel’s war does not spiral into a broader conflict, given the continuing clashes between Israel’s military and Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon. Face-to-face time with Arab leaders was supposed to work on containing the damage but Mr Biden was unable to achieve that on this trip. The size of the task ahead was also made clear by Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan as he slammed the United Nations Security Council for being unable to pass a non-binding resolution for a humanitarian pause in the conflict between Palestinian and Israeli forces to allow aid to reach civilians in Gaza.
In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr Erdogan said Turkish efforts to establish calm in the region had been hindered by the “collective punishment” of Palestinians through airstrikes and the deployment of US aircraft carriers to the region.
“The United Nations Security Council, which has become even more ineffective, has once again not fulfilled its responsibility,” Mr Erdogan said.
As for the UK, Rishi Sunak has called for a “calm and cool” response to the blast at the Gaza hospital as the government committed to publish an assessment of who was behind the blast. The prime minister urged MPs not to “rush to judgement”. Foreign secretary James Cleverly told the Commons: “We take note of what President Biden has said but we will come to our own judgement, we will work on that quickly, and we will ensure that our assessment is put in the public domain as soon as we are confident of the details.”
